Chapter 21
Dídac dawdled as long as he could after rehearsal.
The truth was he felt a bit silly now, wearing his dancer’s belt, and wanted to strip out of it unobtrusively.
But Carme and Felipa were engaged in telling Kim a long-winded yarn in their broken English about a production of Guimerà’s Terra Baixa they had toured to Germany, which even Dídac—native Catalan and having studied English since he was knee-high to a grasshopper—couldn’t really follow.
The show had been an important one, as the classic Catalan play was what Hitler’s filmmaker, Leni Riefenstahl, had based her Tiefland on, and so touring it to Germany a few years ago had been politically significant.
But he pitied Kim, who wore a strained, fixed smile on his face as he listened, nodding sagely, trying to capture all the nuances of that story in the actresses’ broken English.
Rehearsal that day had been intense, though at no point was he in danger of cracking a fat as he had feared.
Kim had seemed almost cold toward him, except in moments that Dídac caught him by surprise, gazing at him fixedly when he thought that Dídac was engaged in some other dramatic action.
Showering this morning, washing off the last vestiges of the director’s smell, had felt almost like sacrilege.
Nevertheless, Dídac had showered, shaved, deodoranted, coffee’d, dressed, and even got out the door, all in good time to reach the theater before anyone else.
Finally, not wanting to strip naked before the other actors—even if they all pared down to their underwear in rehearsals on a daily basis—he slipped his street trousers on over the dancer’s belt.
It felt tight, but he could take it off at home.
So this was it? The girls seemed to be conspiring to take Kim out to lunch.
Dídac could join them, but… could he last an entire lunch staring at Kim without touching him, playing the interested, urbane actor without screaming at him to rip his clothes off and fuck him over the restaurant table?
Dídac stood there helplessly, knowing he maybe looked a little lost, trying to think what to do, how to extract a few personal seconds with the great director. But then Kim cut through it all:
“Dídac, can I get your help with a thing for a few minutes?”
“Uh, yeah, sure,” he said, almost doing a slapstick double take. “How can I help?”
Laia gathered up her notes and bag.
“I’ll see you upstairs after lunch, Kim?” she asked professionally, her eyes sliding coolly over Dídac as she left. “Office, at four?”
Kim nodded, barely acknowledging her exit, even as he was giving his excuses to Carme and Felipa:
“Monday, I promise we’ll do lunch Monday. Shall we head upstairs, Dídac?”
Dídac followed Kim upstairs, expecting him to stop on the office floor.
Instead, he kept climbing the narrower stairs to the floor above, where the Reading Room was.
But at the top, he tried the door on the right.
It opened, and Dídac followed him in. They were in a largish room, chocked with old furniture, costumes and properties.
Curtains across the windows kept the space dim.
“So this is where the ghost lives?” Kim asked.
“Margarida Xirgu?” Dídac chuckled. “Possibly. So they told you about her?”
“Laia did. I would have loved to have met her… in life.”
Then Kim and Dídac came toward each other in a hug, their lips meeting and pressing together passionately.
Dídac inhaled and once more his nostrils were full of Kim’s scent, which he had been dreaming about all night.
It was no longer the heady mix of cologne, sweat, body odors, and sex he had been drunk on last night—now it was mainly sweat, mixed merely with a strong deodorant.
But it was still Kim, Kim, Kim… his director, the actor responsible for his choice of career, the man who had commanded him to strip, and kneel; the man who had entered him and fucked him hard, making him cum like he never had before; the man who had held him in his arms and told him he adored him.
Or had he imagined that bit? He’d told him he wanted him, anyway.
His hands explored Kim’s body, before finding his shirt hem and tugging it violently up his torso.
Kim stepped away for a moment, gazing into Dídac’s eyes, gaging his passion.
Then with a swift movement he pulled his own shirt off, letting it fall, before grabbing Dídac’s, and wrestling it off over his head.
They slammed together, bare-chested, arms wrapped tight around each other.
Kim leaned in and inhaled Dídac, sighing.
His tongue once again dropped to Dídac’s neck, beginning to lick the sweat from Dídac’s skin.
Dídac bared his throat under Kim’s attack.
It was a mimicry of the way they had come together the night before, and it felt like no time had passed since they’d been together on that summer-perfumed terrace under the full moon.
But then Kim roughly turned Dídac, so that he was facing away from him.
Hugging him from behind he continued to attack Dídac’s neck with his tongue and lips, his nose sunk in the thick dark curls on the nape of Dídac’s neck.
Dídac was whimpering, trying not to groan any louder, which might alert the people working in the offices a floor below.
Then Kim was fumbling roughly with Dídac’s belt, undoing it and his flies, before pulling his jeans forcefully down his thighs.
“Ah, I thought you were wearing a belt!”
“I didn’t want to risk another erection in the rehearsal room.”
“Yes, that may be a problem from here on in.”
But the last part of Kim’s words were lost as he wrenched the dancer’s belt roughly down, and pushed his face between Dídac’s buttocks, tongue once again straining forward.
Dídac spread his thighs to accommodate the intrusion, then grasped a dusty mannequin, bent over and pushed his hips back into Kim’s face.
His ass cheeks were like two dark furred peaches before Kim’s face, waiting to be plucked.
Kim’s hands kneaded them urgently, as his tongue worked deep into Dídac’s ass.
Dídac groaned, unable to help himself. Then Kim was standing, spitting on his dick, working the head against Dídac’s asshole, pushing in, claiming him, his hands cupping Dídac’s pecs, squeezing the nipples, pinching and pulling them.
Dídac moaned, pushing back onto Kim’s hard cock.
They began to rock into each other, relishing the heat and feel of the other’s body.
All Kim could think about was plunging deeper and deeper inside Dídac’s tight hole, while Dídac needed to feel Kim’s hard length sliding up to its hilt inside him.
Dídac felt Kim’s breath on the nape of his neck, and then the director closed his mouth over his trapezius muscle, gently sinking his teeth into the skin. Dídac sighed, pushing back into him.
“Fuck me harder, Kim,” he breathed. “I’ve missed you so much.”
And he had. Since leaving Kim’s hotel last night, nothing had occupied his thoughts except the director, and when he might once again wrap his arms around him, or be held in his embrace.
Nothing like this had happened before. No one had meant this much.
His lightest touch was capable of acting like a padlock on Dídac’s will, rendering him incapable of disobeying, compelling him to turn, and respond, to do whatever Kim might decide.
Kim’s breath was coming more hoarsely. With each breath he thrust more forcefully into Dídac’s ass, his teeth clamping tighter into that band of muscle on Dídac’s neck.
And it felt so good. Dídac did not want him to stop, even though the pain was intense, and he’d probably leave a mark.
It was a good pain. He felt wanted, loved…
free… and at the same time protected by this man.
But he could feel Kim was getting close.
Like a wolf, the animal was taking over, the beast dominating the man.
Dídac took hold of himself and began to pull himself off in time to Kim’s thrusts.
His panting breath, gaining in volume in a regular rhythm, became groans—louder and louder.
Kim moved his right hand from Dídac’s pec, up to his mouth, clamping his fingers tight across Dídac’s jaw to shut him up.
At that, Dídac stuck out his tongue, beginning to lick Kim’s fingers eagerly.
“Oh, Dídac…” Kim panted. “I need… I need you… I just… need you!”
And with that he began to come uncontrollably—loudly, which he quickly stifled. Wrapping his arms around Dídac, he hugged him to his body. Dídac grabbed Kim behind him with his free arm, embracing him, as he too came, splattering the mannequin before him with his cum.
“Ah…. Kim! I…” But he stifled the words he wanted to utter even as they rose in his throat. Too soon. A warning sixth sense clamped its hand around his vocal chords, even as he wanted to scream what was in his heart. Instead, what came out a bit lamely was: “You… I… Me too!”
They collapsed together against the mannequin, panting.
“Oh God, did anyone hear?” Kim whispered.
“Who cares!”
Kim eased himself out of Dídac and turned the other to face him, enclosing him in his arms.
“I meant what I said: I want you in my life.”
Dídac smiled like the sun for a brief instant, his face open and suffused with an emotion that looked as close to pure happiness as Kim had ever seen him. But then a cloud passed across his features and he flicked his eyes away.
“You’re leaving after this production. Where, Manchester, is it? Let’s… not get ahead of ourselves.”
“Ah, no… of course. I didn’t mean… OK, yes, I shouldn’t have said that. But… can you at least take me someplace decent for lunch? My shout this time.”
Dídac’s smile returned, now coy, though it revealed a small curl of growing trust.
“I can do that. What’s your fancy?”
Kim’s eyes feasted on Dídac’s sweaty body, held tightly in his secure embrace, and he didn’t need to say a thing for the other to know where his tastes lay.
Dídac laughed and kissed him.
“Yeah, that’s off the menu… until I’ve had a chance to recover. How about paella? It’s Thursday, isn’t it? Thursday’s paella day in most Barcelona restaurants.”
“No, it’s Friday.”
“Oh, don’t worry, I still know a couple of places where we can get a decent paella.”
“You’re on,” Kim mumbled, his face in Dídac’s hair as he kept kissing his neck.
He turned Dídac and leaned in, his tongue once more caressing Dídac’s throat.
The younger man reacted, losing himself again in that delicious feeling, unable to resist Kim’s sensual assault.
Finally, on the verge of getting hard all over again, he pulled his throat away, and found Kim’s lips with his own, kissing him back passionately, but this time more softly, savoring each warm touch.
“And the ghost… Margarida,” Kim asked, pulling away for a moment. “Do you think she saw us?”
“I think she’d approve,” Dídac chuckled. “Working with Lorca, I’m sure she’d have seen more than a few scenes like that.”
They looked around the room, taking in the old props, dusty costumes, and bits of defunct stage sets, at any moment expecting to see the great dame of the twentieth-century theater world slide around the edge of a stage flat and smile beguilingly at them. Kim shivered.
“Come on, let’s get out of here. I’m hungry.”
They dressed again, not without further pauses for lingering kisses and slow hugs.
Finally, Dídac eased open the door quietly, listening for any movement in the Reading Room, or on the stairs.
There was none. They left, quietly descending the stairs, almost tip-toeing melodramatically as they passed the offices.
Someone was working within, but they didn’t look in to see who it was.
The last thing they wanted was to be joined by anyone else from the theater for lunch.
Out on the street, in the automatic act of putting on his shades, Dídac checked his phone.
“Oh no.”
“What?”
“A text from Laia.”
He showed Kim the single-word message: Lunch?
“When did she send it?”
“About… just as we were heading upstairs. We often have lunch together after rehearsal.”
“Just say you had something on.”
“Yeah, but she’ll think it strange I took so long to get back to her.”
Dídac frowned, thought for a few moments and then fired off a text.
“I’ll see her this evening, and—”
“Spill all?”
“Ah, I’m not… Are we a secret?”
“Not exactly, but it might be a bit early to post the wedding banns.”
“OK, I’ll be discreet.”
“Come on, take me to lunch.”